Adult Clinic Woes

[Sureshot]

I think the problem is not that the game is inaccessable to beginners, its that it is inaccessable to adult beginners.

I'm finding this to generally be the case as well. Not just from clinics either; stick times tend to be at some hour during the day when most adults are working, so it can be difficult to find one that you can actually go to.

Rinks really need to try and put at least one stick time session a week that adults can attend. Some people just want to go and see how they like hockey without committing to classes or anything first. Unfortunately, it always seems like anything beginner-related is geared towards finding the next young stars, so adults tend to be an afterthought at this level.

Really, the only reason I got started was because some friends suggested I join them at the local public roller rink, which has been amazing so far. See if you have one in the area if you just want to see what it feels like to play hockey. Else, there are some companies that offer practice areas to rent (synthetic ice), so see if there are any near you that do this (HockeyOne is an example).

 

[iamjs]

Had the opposite happen to me. Signed up for a 10-week clinic to work on intermediate skills and half the class was beginners with a few that couldn't skate.

Which black jersey did you wear that day?

This is both the blessing and the curse of hockey culture. It has a strong core-community that keeps the game accessable at a grass roots level, but the core-community is so insular that it inhibits the growth of the game.

We have/had(?) a similar problem with an inline league we played back home. One team was former HS "stars", college players, or an occasional junior A player. Usually it was the same core of 7-8 players with an additional 2-3 players mixed in that were friends of a friend. They were also the type of team that would fistpump after a goal or would shoot point blank slappers in the closing minutes during a 10-2 rout. Being that the majority of us are true beer leaguers who might play one weekend game and show up to drop-in once a week, this team was the type that would skate 3-4 leagues at a time. But since we were a small town, you basically have one inline league and that's it. Teams would get discouraged, and what was once an 8 team league eventually went down to 4 teams after three seasons.